As a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to get an invite from my dad to head down to the town dump to chuck the trash.
He often collected items such as broken lawn chairs and Coleman lanterns that were left behind by campers and hauled them along with our household stuff.
The aroma of the dump greeted us long before we reached the entrance, even with the windows closed. But as I hopped out of the truck the garbage smell was concealed by the odor of the burn pile.
Back in 1976, the Limekiln Road dump was a landfill.
There was no separating trash in those days, no recycling, reusing, or reducing.
The cardboard, paper, plastic and cans were chucked together with the leftover chicken, television sets and mattresses over the berm and into the pit.
At the time, going to the dump was considered a form of entertainment.
Not only was there a big smudge fire and a bulldozer, but there were also bears.
It was like going to the circus—one giant smelly, burning, visual nightmare that just had to be seen to be believed.
There was always one man working, an older guy wearing the same worn and stained blue work shirt with a not-so-white tee shirt showing at the neck.
A scruffy-looking character who always looked like he was in need of a shave, he sat on an old bar stool in front of a tiny shack.
With a pull at his tight cap he acknowledged he had seen us and that our garbage was okay to chuck.
Scattered around this garbage curmudgeon was a vast assortment of items he decided were just to good to toss over the berm: Old tricycles, chairs and brick a brack.
He watched as each person shuffled along the dirty earth, lugging their bags to the edge of the pit and chucking them in.
That was my favorite part of the process, as there was always the chance that inertia would take you over the edge and into the pit to duke it out with a bear.
What more could a boy want?
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com